I still get some more disposable mags like Empire for reading, er, you know where. Call me old fashioned but that's one room i don't need to be connected. Or accidentally call someone on Skype.
Damn, I think I'd enjoy a subscription to Retro Gamer. Have a handful of issues from newsstands but having it delivered on the reg could be a happy little monthly surprise.
I don't care what they're actually talking about. I just like the sound of it.
Japanese being a more, uh... what's the word. Like, it's assembled out of building-blocks of sounds - ka, ga, ii, and so on. It's a much snappier, crisper sounding language, which makes it great for a beat-based backing!
When I was in primary school, I bought mags based on the amount of screen shots they had. There was this cool Nintendo mag that was pretty good, don't remember if it was an official magazine but it had the huge Nintendo logo at the top. I also read K-Zone lol
For some reason it kind of shits me that every genre of music out of Asia is called J-this or K-that. Can't it just be Japanese hip hop? I have no idea why this annoys me.
On Japanese bands though I've always like Envy and Maximum the Hormone are so ridiculous I think it's impossible not to at least vaguely like them
Edit: Magazine wise, I don't really read any anymore. I used to read tonnes of Hyper (yay Jintor!) but I actually don't even remember the last time I saw it on a shelf.
I get Game Informer (thank you EB) and it seems to get some decent exclusives, but realistically I never finish it and barely care about their reviews
Combined with the purple shirt and tie combo and his horrible neck beard (not that I can grow one much better but I rarely let it get past the stubble phase) it's just a nerdy match made in heaven
When I was in primary school, I bought mags based on the amount of screen shots they had. There was this cool Nintendo mag that was pretty good, don't remember if it was an official magazine but it had the huge Nintendo logo at the top. I also read K-Zone lol
Edit: Magazine wise, I don't really read any anymore. I used to read tonnes of Hyper (yay Jintor!) but I actually don't even remember the last time I saw it on a shelf.
I bought Hyper every month throughout my primary school & early teenage years. Ah, memories. The last time i saw it on the shelf was about a year ago, but i rarely go to the newsagents these days.
Edge (in shops)
Pros: well written reviews
Cons: industry focus, chasing fads/marketing hype, meaningless, boring columns full of waffle, everything is online anyway
It's become even more weighted in favour of the articles in recent months. But in the past, they used to have good columnists like biffovision and redeye. Nowadays, and in recent years, the commentators have been pretty fucking boring.
I went to bed when it was 3-0. Surprised at the scoreline given the midweek result and season so far. I found it amusing that Man City were complaining about the red card, given how theyve been let off in the past for much worse (see also De Jong vs Ben Arfa last season).
I was disappointed not to see any jars on the shelves, but then I noticed they had a box of it on the floor nearby, probably waiting to be put up for the next restocking, so I ripped open the plastic wrapping, grabbed a bottle and high-tailed it to the registers.
It'll likely never get opened either, because I still have half a normal jar and a full tube in the fridge and I only have need of said jar with backup tube on my days off from Lite'n'Easy (which is two days a month). Still, I really wanted to just have a jar of bottled Australia...
Edit: Oh, and the lid is still embossed with Vegemite for anybody who is wondering.
Edit 2: Just realised they changed "Proudly made in Australia since 1923" to "Proudly made from Vegemite since 1923"... lol
I was disappointed not to see any jars on the shelves, but then I noticed they had a box of it on the floor nearby, probably waiting to be put up for the next restocking, so I ripped open the plastic wrapping and was high-tailed it to the registers.
It'll likely never get opened either, because I still have half a normal jar and a full tube in the fridge and I only have need of said jar with backup tube on my days off from Lite'n'Easy (which is two days a month). Still, I really wanted to just have a jar of bottled Australia...
Edit: Oh, and the lid is still embossed with Vegemite for anybody who is wondering.
Edit 2: Just realised they changed "Proudly made in Australia since 1923" to "Proudly made from Vegemite since 1923"... lol
Made a stop on the walk from work to home at Aldi and picked up some milk, bread, OJ, etc. Peak hour traffic though made walking to my house irritating with a massive bag of stuff with everyone doing 60kmph around the cbd which is directed by roundabouts. No-one even gave me a first look, let alone a second one.
Once I got home the little dude brought his bike helmet over to me so I took him for a walk since I have been spending too much time here on the computer during his waking hours. He loves to ride in a little pushalong trike. It is basically this but red and plain without all the garbage stickers on it. Also the front has a drink holder and fake phone for him to call Cookie Monster on rather than the bag. He also eventually gets bored of not having control and reafs the handles left and right to be funny, which isn't funny as you are crossing a road.
What a change! Every roundabout every car stops and waves us through. Usually I only take him out on it on weekends. It was a serious chick magnet. Every single person walking past, businessmen or old people or hot uni chicks, would light up with a smile on their face and make cute talk with the little dude as we went past. It was unsettling the effect it had on people.
tl;dr - if you are sick of getting run over as a pedestrian steal a kid and a tricycle
Also was pleased today that GAME.co.uk timed my package of RAGE Anarchy Edition on 360 to arrive today when I sent off Gaz's copy to CoDsWaLlOp. Only cost me $17 too, sent on 24/12 so didn't take long. Still waiting on the $8 copy of RF Armageddon from them though.
Damn right, I have a horrible attention span. Which is why I will spend 5 days getting the yard looking fantastic and then suddenly 2 months later we look like we derelict balls and I have to go into hyper mode to get the damn thing under control again.
Not to mention my massive backlog of games that I am 2 hours into.
Not to mention the terabyte or so of remixing I did before deciding to wait to pick up a synth I had my eye on and wanted to wait for it to go on sale.
Not to mention the bass in the corner that I picked up and re-learnt after talking to some old mates about getting the band back together since our drummer had decided that speed probably wasn't a good thing with the cough he had developed.
Not to mention the numerous blogs and short stories and poetry and business proposals and recipes.
I blame all the weed I smoked first year of uni. Otherwise people would blame all the gaming I have done since I was 5, and I don't want that.
Yeah. The bane of someone just in it for the challenge and with no interest for whatever the 'reward' is for completing the thing for maybe others to enjoy.
Don't worry. I will be annoying the shit out of you like a Jewish mother-in-law who appreciates your slender nose to get the Steam Vapour Categoriser up and running. I am a lazy man with a slight amount of OCD so I need my worthless shit lined up perfectly in my mind or else I won't be able to sleep!
It's cumbersome to change them, you can't have more than one and with only 35 or so, it doesn't really help me at all. So yeah it's pretty rudimentary at the moment.
I meant you can't add more than one category to a game. So for example you couldn't add Breath of Death VII to separate 'Indie' and 'RPG' categories if you had them.
That would go into the Adventure category for me I think as I enjoy the story and developed theme more than the fantastic gameplay. Anything by those guys is an instant day one, CE if possible, pickup.
They understand where games have come from and what they need to be in this day and age. Same with the Time Please! Gentlemen boys. Take the best of the old and make it fun without the jank of the past.
My parents go over every year and love it but I am too paranoid. Plus I get all mopey just thinking about unfortunate people here in Australia, if I went to another country and saw how some people lived I would want to stay and work at some non-profit place and would feel guilty flying back to my comfortable country here.
Super jelly on both counts. A mate of mine moved into an investment house his parents got and was able to save up for a deposit. Certainly the smart way to go about it. Also GDC would be so fucking cool from a developers perspective. You better write some cool stuff about it!
I am just bitter that I never got to do any cool electives, I think in 4 years, I got to 'pick' 2-3 subjects maximum, all of them in my field (engineering).
In my years all I did was elect not to go to class and not to study. Worked out well for me, what with my no degree and all! Wish I had just focused and got the damn thing within 3 years. Would be much further along in life now if I did.
Heh, perhaps in hindsight I should have perhaps switched out to something I would have enjoyed a bit more (look at me now, doing dev work, not real engineering!), but a technical degree is a technical degree that opens doors, so meh. I am also stubborn.
My best mate did Commerce with majors in Marketing and Finance and ended up working as a machinist at a textile factory. 3 months later he got promoted to design engineer coming up with all the felts for printing presses around the world. lol
Funniest thing was most of our mates were from the engineering society and they would always tell him to do a double degree in engineering, totally worth the extra 2 years they said!
OMI! Second project for the year! Whip up a program that you can pull up your Steam wishlist and allows you to enter maximum price values so that as soon as the game drops below that price the program will automatically buy it for you! I call it Instant Collectosteamatic 3000!
Josh really is the best fucking name in the world. Not that I am biased. My name is Steve or something. I just think that Josh is the coolest name since Joshua.
It even has biblical stuff attached to it. Joshua was the dude who banged all those chicks that repopulated the earth after that dick Jonas flooded it and was too busy singing Bestiality's Best Boys on his silly boat.
Although at this point most publishers and games have been up on there for most of the year now, with massive sales all the time so it is hard to not buy up constantly. Best generation for price without a doubt. Never had so many games that I had paid so little for.
Any tips to get into them for someone who doesn't want to blow their budget? Looked at a few and they seem insanely expensive. I am a very thrifty man, after all I do buy water so I need to cut the budget somewhere.
Not so secret now hey! If only you made less effort like the rest of us and just gifted some Steam games it could have all been kept a secret! Now some sleuthing soul can work out who gave gifts to whom based on the information you leaved. You have doomed us all!
Will it be fun for my gf? I really should have bought a few of these around Christmas time as the in-laws always play board games during the holidays. Spicks & Specks is so much fun.
It may seem sacriligeous but I recommend Game Informer.
Really cheap, has fantastic covers and artwork, tend to have at least one decent interview/feature a month that you don't get anywhere else because of the sway they have in the industry, as well as the odd exclusive reveal like (true)X-com and South Park RPG.
Most magazines don't seem worth the money and are full of advertisements for shit I'm not even vaguely interested in. PCPP have had horrible ads in the past. Also I feel the majority of articles/reviews/previews are fucking horribly written and edited. I want something that I can't get online please. You cool though Jintor, as I have said in the past.
Actually one bone I have is a recent GI review of Goldeneye HD. The review text makes it out to be horrible, as if it is basically Duke Nukem 4eva but with the Bond IP slapped on it. Yet it still got a 7. The reviewer basically told everyone to avoid and not waste your money on it but the editor still slapped a 7 on it. Gave me the shits.
Thankfully my GI collection lives in the appropriate room for that sort of thing...
So much cool stuff happens behind the scenes of games, developers and publishers that it WOULD be awesome but everyone in the industry are too worried about keeping it hush hush so they don't piss off the wrong person or get a stain on their CV or give another company insight into how they did certain stuff. The fantastic Gamasutra Post Mortem's show how interesting it really is.
360 or PS3 version? A little worried. Ah hell, I will never even SEE Blighttown let alone the dropped frames! I couldn't even get through Condemned! I even moved my PC into the loungeroom of our shared rental place over the summer when it came out because I was too scared to play it alone! Actually it worked well with Dead Space as a girl I was trying to date would agree to come over and keep me company while playing so I wouldn't freak out.
360 or PS3 version? A little worried. Ah hell, I will never even SEE Blighttown let alone the dropped frames! I couldn't even get through Condemned! I even moved my PC into the loungeroom of our shared rental place over the summer when it came out because I was too scared to play it alone! Actually it worked well with Dead Space as a girl I was trying to date would agree to come over and keep me company while playing so I wouldn't freak out.
I've only just started getting deeper into Blighttown and the frame drops only happened twice. It was bad, but it might have been worse before. Don't worry, you'll make it to Blighttown. I don't think it's even half way through the game.
My parents go over every year and love it but I am too paranoid. Plus I get all mopey just thinking about unfortunate people here in Australia, if I went to another country and saw how some people lived I would want to stay and work at some non-profit place and would feel guilty flying back to my comfortable country here.
its fine for tourists (just don't take drugs) ..... just that if you're not ethnic malay (eg: chinese or indian), you're pretty much a 2nd class citizen.
eg: My dad was a public servant and was passed over for promotion 8 years in a row because he mysteriously couldn't meet the malay language requirement.
the annoying thing is that when he finally got fed up and moved to Singapore .....they changed it so that testing wasn't needed anymore >_<
all those language lessons gone to waste.
Thats why there are so many chinese malaysians in Australia.
Reptile, if it's just you and your girl, get Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries. Wife and I played 3 games back to back (to back) the day we opened it up. If you haven't played much beyond Monopoly (like we hadn't) you'll enjoy it a lot.
Nordic Countries is designed for only 2 or 3 players too.
DON'T start board gaming with Arkham Horror. Don't get me wrong, it really is totally fun watching all this horrible shit happen to you and your friends. It takes quite a long time to play and your chances of winning are still terrible after hours of gaming (even though fun is the aim).
You're far better off beginning your board gaming journey with something a little less complex, cumbersome and overwhelming to new people. You will eventually want Arkham Horror or something like it (Mansions of Madness looks awesome!) but not just yet.
I am also currently on the quest to find something beginner friendly and somewhat addictive so I can get my friends (the ones who aren't into it) to have a go. Ban (with a name like Josh, he'll get all the ladies ) is recommending Ticket to Ride, which I might dive in and grab.
I'm also eyeing off a game called Formula D, which is a quite intriguing car racing game as you might have guessed from the title. It seems light on the rules for beginners and then there are a number of advanced gaming modes you can play later on, should it take your fancy.
Though I am still new to this hobby, the games I keep seeing popping up are: Ticket to Ride; Dominion (card); 7 Wonders; The Resistance (card/party); Formula D; and Survive: Escape from Atlantis! I haven't checked all of them out thoroughly (currently working on it), but they may be worth a look.
Me and the mates usually play Battlestar Galactica, Last Night on Earth (zombies), Mansions of Madness, Dominion and I've got Pandemic on the way soon. We're thinking about picking up Game of Thrones as it sounds hilarious with how you can screw with people, but the 3 hour play time is putting us off a bit. Arkham Horror sounded awesome too, I think Mansions of Madness is a bit of a quicker/simpler version of that.
Reptile, if it's just you and your girl, get Ticket to Ride Nordic Countries. Wife and I played 3 games back to back (to back) the day we opened it up. If you haven't played much beyond Monopoly (like we hadn't) you'll enjoy it a lot.
Nordic Countries is designed for only 2 or 3 players too.
DON'T start board gaming with Arkham Horror. Don't get me wrong, it really is totally fun watching all this horrible shit happen to you and your friends. It takes quite a long time to play and your chances of winning are still terrible after hours of gaming (even though fun is the aim).
I'm also eyeing off a game called Formula D, which is a quite intriguing car racing game as you might have guessed from the title. It seems light on the rules for beginners and then there are a number of advanced gaming modes you can play later on, should it take your fancy.
Me and the mates usually play Battlestar Galactica, Last Night on Earth (zombies), Mansions of Madness, Dominion and I've got Pandemic on the way soon. We're thinking about picking up Game of Thrones as it sounds hilarious with how you can screw with people, but the 3 hour play time is putting us off a bit. Arkham Horror sounded awesome too, I think Mansions of Madness is a bit of a quicker/simpler version of that.
If 3 hours sounds too long, Arkham Horror is probably a bad idea, that game can go for ages. Mansions of Madness (from what I have heard/read) is considerably shorter and has a GM who is pitted against the other players, Arkham Horror is all players against the game.
Dominion is fantastic fun, though I like the games with attack cards; messing with other people is fun. If you have a bunch of expansions, there is an iPhone app that allows you to set up some random games, so you can try that instead of just the recommended themes that come with the game and expansions.
Edit: Also, for anyone who's keen on traditional games, have a look at Shut Up & Sit Down. It's a great review show that is quite funny and entertaining as well as being somewhat informative.
If 3 hours sounds too long, Arkham Horror is probably a bad idea, that game can go for ages. Mansions of Madness (from what I have heard/read) is considerably shorter and has a GM who is pitted against the other players, Arkham Horror is all players against the game.
Dominion is fantastic fun, though I like the games with attack cards; messing with other people is fun. If you have a bunch of expansions, there is an iPhone app that allows you to set up some random games, so you can try that instead of just the recommended themes that come with the game and expansions.
Yeah, we heard Arkham Horror was long. Sounds awesome though, heard it's really hard to win. Mansions of Madness is good, but still seems hard to beat the GM. I love the little stories and it has these neat puzzle pieces you need to solve. Last game the GM won because he took skin samples from the players, went into the altar, summoned a fuck-off big Chthonian who proceeded to waltz out the door lol.
Dominion I've only played a couple of times. Really simple and good fun. That app sounds cool, will have to tell my mate about it. It's definitely a bit more easy going than the other games we play. We also get into Catan as well which can be a nice change of pace.
its fine for tourists (just don't take drugs) ..... just that if you're not ethnic malay (eg: chinese or indian), you're pretty much a 2nd class citizen.
eg: My dad was a public servant and was passed over for promotion 8 years in a row because he mysteriously couldn't meet the malay language requirement.
the annoying thing is that when he finally got fed up and moved to Singapore .....they changed it so that testing wasn't needed anymore >_<
all those language lessons gone to waste.
Thats why there are so many chinese malaysians in Australia.
Yeah, we heard Arkham Horror was long. Sounds awesome though, heard it's really hard to win. Mansions of Madness is good, but still seems hard to beat the GM. I love the little stories and it has these neat puzzle pieces you need to solve. Last game the GM won because he took skin samples from the players, went into the altar, summoned a fuck-off big Chthonian who proceeded to waltz out the door lol.
Yes! That is why these Call of Cthulhu games are so great. Even when you lose horribly, it's fantastic!
In Arkham Horror, there is an event card for the woods where you get jumped by hillbillies, we call it "the rape card". One of my mates ended up in the woods and had to pull an event card, someone else piped up, excitedly "You're gonna get raped! Can I draw the card from the pile for you?" He was given the go ahead and sure enough the rape card came up and we were all in hysterics. It may not seem funny at the moment in text form, but little moments like that really make the game. Win or lose, it's a great time.
Dominion I've only played a couple of times. Really simple and good fun. That app sounds cool, will have to tell my mate about it. It's definitely a bit more easy going than the other games we play. We also get into Catan as well which can be a nice change of pace.
Dominion is our warm up game, always playing it at the start of each gaming session. Everyone likes it and it's always fun. The reactions from an attack card like The Witch (make everyone draw a curse card) followed by a Masquerade (pass a card from your hand to the left) is always funny, curse cards going everywhere.
Reptile, as others have said Ticket to Ride is probably the best game to start with if you are new to Euro style board games, girls seem to generally love it as well. It isn't the cheapest though, at about $55-$60 plus shipping online from Milsims or Games Empire.
If you are looking for co-op, Pandemic is great fun and a bit cheaper (though sometimes a bit tough for beginners). Even cheaper is a game called Forbidden Island (made by the same guy who made Pandemic) which is simpler to learn and a lot of fun.
Carcassonne and Citadels are both reasonably cheap and a lot of fun for 2 or more players. Scoring in Carcassonne can be a bit tricky at first but like any board game becomes simpler the more you play. Citadels is great and can be played by up to 7 or 8 players if the family is around.
Dominion is always fun as well, one of the simpler deck building games out there but heaps of expansions to keep things fresh.
If you are interested in more complicated and longer 2 player games I would highly recommend Twilight Struggle or 1960: The Making of the President. Both are reasonably complex but have fantastic gameplay and are amazing fun. My girlfriend and I have a game of 1960 every couple of weeks, I'm always Nixon and I pretty much always lose
Best way to research any of them is to go onto www.boardgamegeek.com and start reading reviews and checking out the charts. If you are getting a game to play with the other half make sure you can play it with 2 players (might seem obvious but worth mentioning, I don't have many opportunities to play with multiple people so I pretty much always end up just playing against the gf).
Also make sure you shop around, if you buy from a bricks and mortar store you will pretty much always pay to much.
